I picked up a brand new garrett .48/.60 50 trim a while back and just recently put it on my car. I’ve put a total of 11 miles on the turbo and it now has considerable shaft play, much more than my 20 year old turbo that I ran on my last car.
I also don’t build hardly any boost when i get on it and while it’s spooling it makes a shrieking noise that sounds much like the turbine or compressor wheel are rubbing against the housing. Not to mention the juggling of metal sound that happens on and off while it’s spooling as well.
It sounds pretty obvious that this turbo is shot, but how does this happen being that it’s brand new? I’m a bit frustrated right now and will see if the guy that I bought it from knows anything.
Well, there are a couple of ways that could have caused this problem to occur. Both concern themselves with the oil pressure, lack thereof. Since we don’t know what oil pressure you had at the line, or where you hooked it into the back of the block, we have no idea if you had sufficient oil pressure, (or a pressure drop that intermittently occurred) that could easily be the cause for the temporary loss of pressure. That lack of pressure ensures that there is no protective layer of oil that the bearing needs to float on for it to properly operate. This seems likely the case because without that layer of oil, the turbo will be off balance at a higher rpm (for the turbo, not the car) when the turbo spools up, and will easily knock against the compressor housing (this explains the high pitched-grinding noise that you currently hear) as it is spinning.
This can happen to a turbo that only has several MINUTES of lack of oil pressure. Mileage has nothing to do with it.
Basically, your turbo needs to be rebuilt. The means new bearing kit, remachining of the compressor housing (depending upon how deeply scored), possibly a new turbine wheel (if there is a “blueing” of the turbine shaft from the lack of oil), and possibly a new compressor wheel. This can be sent to a turbo specialist to be investigated as to whether or not it CAN be rebuilt, or if you’re better off just buying a new unit.
Look at your oil setup for the turbo first, before you do anything, or even with a new turbo, the same thing can happen again just as fast.